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Dragongirl (The Dragonriders of Pern) Hardcover – Deckle Edge, July 27, 2010
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Young Fiona, rider of the gold queen Talenth, has returned from the past, where she and a group of dragons and riders fled so that the wounded could heal from their previous battles with Thread and the younger dragons could safely grow to fighting age. Gone only three days, yet aged more than three years, Fiona is no longer a child but a woman prepared to fight against the Thread that threatens to destroy her world.
Fiona’s life takes a pivotal turn when a shocking tragedy thrusts her into a position of authority. Now she finds herself leading weyrfolk who have a hard time trusting a senior Weyrwoman who is both young and an outsider.
But even greater challenges lie ahead: Thread is falling and there are too few dragons to stem the tide. Many have died from the recent plague, and even with the influx of newly mature dragons from the past, the depleted fighting force is no match for the intensifying Threadfall. Fiona knows that something must be done, and what she proposes is daring and next to impossible. But if her plan succeeds, it just might save them all.
With a cast of familiar characters from previous Pern novels—including Lorana, who sacrificed her own queen dragon so that all the dragons of Pern would have a chance to survive, and Kindan, the harper Fiona has loved her whole life—Dragongirl is another triumph for Todd McCaffrey, and a riveting new chapter for the Dragonriders of Pern.
- Print length512 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDel Rey
- Publication dateJuly 27, 2010
- Dimensions6.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100345491165
- ISBN-13978-0345491169
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Review
“The [Pern] torch has been passed and burns more brightly than ever.”—Publishers Weekly, on Dragonsblood
“Highly recommended . . . strong storytelling.”—Library Journal (starred review), on Dragonheart
From the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Heart, give voice to sing Of life on dragon wings!
Fort Weyr, AL 508.2.2
It was still snowing, and cold. Fiona shivered, wishing she hadn't outgrown her warm fur-lined leathers. Back in hot Igen, heavy clothing had been out of place, but here, at Fort Weyr, it was invaluable.
Her nose and lungs froze as she took another breath. Frantically, she pulled a portion of her thin scarf up to cover her nose; the air was easier to breathe that way, but her breath fogged her vision.
It had been an age for her since that time--only days ago here--when the strange gold rider had come:
"Get dressed," the rider had said. "We must be quick. We can't wake the others."
Fiona had had only an instant to decide: a rash plunge into the unknown. Why had she taken it?
But she had; and for three Turns she'd been Weyrwoman of Igen Weyr, which had been abandoned until she and the other Fort dragonriders had gone back ten Turns in time to use it as a place to grow and heal . . . She'd learned to trade, learned to fly, andlearned what it meant to be a Weyrwoman.
She had nearly seventeen Turns now, but here, back in her own time, they still thought her not yet fourteen. A part of her longed for that, longed to give the responsibility for decisions to others, to rest and relax and just focus on raising her queen.
Her queen. Beautiful Talenth had grown, had become a queen in all her glory, ready for her first mating flight, ready to add her hatchlings to the dragons of Pern.
When Fiona had realized that, had really understood, she had turned to T'mar. The bronze rider had been her mentor, her trainer, and the Weyrleader of the small group of injured and immature riders who had accompanied her back in time. He had been theone person who could help her take that next step in becoming a queen rider. There was a bond between them, she knew it. More than shared peril, more than shared times. He had a piece of her heart, freely given. But, she thought with a breath of the cold air,he didn't have it all.
Kindan. He was also there, on her horizon. As a child, she had loved him, while he had loved her older sister, Koriana. During her time at Igen, in the past, she had met him again, but she'd been older, and he hadn't recognized her. Now, as a grown woman,she had discovered that her feelings for him were no less than they'd been when she was a girl. Did she love him, she challenged herself, or did she just want to prove that she was as good as Koriana, whom he'd held in his arms as she died?
"Are you ready?" Terin asked, from her perch in front of Fiona.
"I'm ready," Fiona said, moving her scarf away and glancing down to the Weyr Bowl below.
The older riders had already landed. T'mar was being embraced by Weyrleader K'lior, and there, to one side, stood dark-haired, quiet Xhinna.
"Oh, please, let's land by Xhinna!" Terin said, as she spotted the weyrgirl. "Wait until she sees that I'm taller than her now!"
Three Turns. Three days. Xhinna had been her best friend before she'd left for Igen, but much had happened since, and Fiona realized that Xhinna had become a memory, nearly lost in all that time. Now Xhinna was only three days older, while Fiona had agedthree Turns. Could they just pick up where they had left off? Or start anew?
Seeing Cisca, Fort's Weyrwoman, walking toward her as she leaped down from Talenth aroused further apprehension. At Igen, Fiona had been a Weyrwoman among boys and injured riders. Could she now return to her junior role under Cisca? It would be safe, sheknew. It would be easy, too. But the part of her that stored and cherished the images of her father and Kindan, both so strong and determined, urged her to do more. And then Fiona wondered: Were leaders always scared?
If it was any warmer down in the Weyr Bowl, Fiona couldn't tell it from the cold stares she received. She couldn't place the reaction at first, until she realized: They didn't recognize her.
Terin's hand slipped into hers and Fiona guessed that the younger girl was coming to the same realization. Terin waved her free hand at Xhinna. "Xhinna, it's me!"
The weyrgirl turned in their direction, her blue eyes sad and careworn.
"She looks like she lost her best friend," Terin said to Fiona.
"She has," Cisca said, having gotten close enough to overhear. Fiona looked at her, surprised that she was nearly eye level with the Weyrwoman. "Three days ago the weyrlings and--"
Even Cisca didn't know who she was. Fiona felt a lump in her throat. It was hard to speak. "Me, Weyrwoman." "The gold rider brought us," Terin said, glancing up to Cisca and then quickly away, her eyes drifting back to Xhinna.
Cisca was staring intently at Fiona, studying her face. Then she let out a sob. "Fiona?" She grabbed Fiona and clutched her tightly, bruisingly, and Fiona felt guilty as the Weyrwoman's hot tears rained down on her. "We thought--" She pushed away fromFiona, her face clouding as anger replaced relief.
"I brought them back, Cisca," Fiona said hurriedly, waving an arm to the riders and dragons behind her, hoping to avoid the Weyrwoman's wrath. "They're ready to fight. All of them."
Cisca looked beyond her to the riders and dragons in the Weyr Bowl. "The weyrlings?"
"Trained and ready," Fiona said, letting justifiable pride creep into her voice. This much she had done. She had fought, she had succeeded, she had overcome her own fears and kept them hidden from all: She had been a Weyrwoman.
Fiona stirred slowly to wakefulness, feeling surprised at the warmth around her. She vaguely remembered crawling out of her bed with her blankets draped over her and curling up against Talenth, but now she felt another body lying against her, pressingher more tightly against her queen.
As tired as she'd been, she'd made her full report to Cisca and then had carefully explained to Terin that she needed to make amends with Xhinna and would it be all right if Terin found some other place to sleep that night?
Terin had been too quick to agree; Fiona suspected that her request had been used as an excuse by the strawberry-haired teen to seek out the handsome F'jian.
The other body shifted away quickly and Fiona groaned.
"I'm sorry," a voice spoke as the other person jumped to her feet. It was Xhinna.
"Don't be," Fiona replied, turning to look up at her and gesturing invitingly for Xhinna to rejoin her. "I'm certain that I was freezing until you came." She made a face. "I don't know how I'll adjust to this cold again."
Only slightly relieved, Xhinna sat back down beside her. With an irritated sigh, Fiona pulled her close. "There," she murmured, "warmer."
Xhinna remained tense beside her. Fiona opened one eye and saw that the younger girl was eyeing her with a mixture of trepidation, assessment, and fear. Fiona opened both eyes, turned, drew Xhinna's head toward hers and laid a sisterly kiss on the girl'sforehead.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't bring you with us," Fiona murmured in her ear. She pulled back enough to stare Xhinna in the eyes. "I love you, you are a dear friend, and I missed you."
"But you're so old now!"
Fiona could feel the many levels on which Xhinna made the comment and nodded slightly.
"I am," Fiona agreed with a twist of her lips. "Do you still want to be friends?"
Xhinna pursed her lips but said nothing, instead closing her eyes and leaning back against Fiona. A small sound escaped her lips, perhaps a sob, perhaps a sigh of contentment . . . or acceptance.
Melanwy, the aged ex-headwoman who had gone between forever with Weyrwoman Tannaz only a short time ago for Xhinna, and that same short time plus three whole Turns for Fiona's time-jumping self, had scorned and loathed Xhinna because of the young girl'snature. That same nature which had made certain that she would never Impress a queen dragon. But Fiona had accepted Xhinna for who she was--just as she had accepted blue rider F'dan for who he was. Everyone had a heart; just because different things set thembeating didn't mean that there wasn't something for Fiona to love in all of them.
She knew that if she were to continue to be Xhinna's friend, she had to make Xhinna comfortable in the knowledge that she would never be her lover but also make it clear that she would always accept Xhinna's love. The two things were different, somethingFiona grasped at a level beneath conscious thought even though, until very recently, she had never experienced the difference between loving and having a lover.
"Friends?" Fiona repeated when Xhinna made no reply.
"Promise me this," Xhinna said. She waited for Fiona to nod before continuing, "Promise me that you'll never leave me again."
"I swear by the egg of Talenth that, if it's in my power, I'll never leave you again, Xhinna," Fiona said, hugging her tightly. She whispered into her ear, "I missed you."
"But you didn't think I was dead," Xhinna said, not entirely mollified.
"The gold rider--" Fiona began, but Xhinna cut her off.
"Wasn't it you, from the future?"
Fiona pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I don't know." She saw Xhinna's look and said, "Really, I don't know. I could have been but . . ." She broke off, shaking her head. "The gold rider said y...
Product details
- Publisher : Del Rey; 1st edition (July 27, 2010)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0345491165
- ISBN-13 : 978-0345491169
- Item Weight : 1.75 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #648,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13,520 in Science Fiction Adventures
- #35,604 in American Literature (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Todd McCaffrey is the New York Times Bestselling author of over forty books, hailed by some as "A Modern Master Of The Craft."
He writes both science fiction and fantasy, including eight in the Dragonriders of Pern (R) universe. the six-book Canaris Rift Series, the on-going Steamworld series (The Steam Walker, The Steam Spy), the new LA Witch series, and the Twin Soul Series in collaboration with the Winner Twins.
He has recently re-released his collection, The One Tree Of Luna (And Other Stories), as well as a new collection (Dare To Be Mighty).
Visit his website is at http://www.toddmccaffrey.com
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Todd McCaffrey hit his stride as a writer in this book. I have been somewhat disappointed with his earlier works, interesting though they were, because he always seemed to be playing off his mother's work, much the way guitarists get together and create semi-new music by playing off one another's riffs. In Dragonblood he made the virtually unforgivable error of making Wind Blossom Kitty Ping's daughter, when in fact she was her granddaughter; I cannot imagine how that got past both his mother and the editors. Although he introduced many new characters and plot elements into his later books, such things as discovering better sources of firestone after the original sources had been lost and dragons and humans were being killed by a dangerous substitute; discovering and naming the coal mine that would later be called cromcoal; and expanding the shunning that had been inflicted on Ted Tubberman to a degree so drastic as to create a society of untouchables all made me feel that he was playing not just his mother's game; he was also playing with her toys.
But in Dragongirl I felt that he was giving us a story of his own that did not play off his mother's work. Of course he is still working in a world he did not create, which is difficult at best, but I was very pleased with the treatment of characters he had introduced previously as well as his new characters. In a very few places he still used the wrong word, although it was always clear what word he meant, but he did far less of that than in his previous books.
I am astonished that it has been reviewed so badly by other readers. I am a writer and editor--I have been a writer for 60 years and an editor for 25 years, and had I been in charge of purchasing I would have snapped this up in a hurry. I do not find it too conversation-heavy; at no time did I have the feeling that I was reading talking heads. I thought the balance between dialog and narrative was exactly right.
To sum up, I liked this book and I expect the rest of his work to be equal to it or better than it.
Before I was not quite yet half way through this book I was wondering "where is the meat of this story" and felt that Todd was putting "filler" in it's place. I am now almost finished and just simply feel "lost" in the book and not understanding how some things have ended up the way
they have. I don't think I will buy anymore in the Pern series now that Anne has passed. Sadly I'm beginning to wonder if I even want to finish the book. I can't seem to get "connected" with the character's lives and if I start to... Todd jumps to something that distracts me and pulls me in yet another direction.
His Mother was my favorite author and started what became my habit of reading before falling to sleep at night.